Mazie Hirono: protest that there were no gims here for women and only for men. and that must have been a real sight. ms. hirono: things have changed and we have full-sized lockers now and truly, in terms of gender equality, patsy was a leader because she had to fight

Mazie Hirono: every step of the way. and one of the stories about patsy when she applied to medical school, she was a very, very smart woman. she wanted to become a doctor, applied to medical school and was refused because she was a woman. and when she applied to law school, she put her in the international dorm, because they

Mazie Hirono: thought she was a foreign person. so we've come a long way. and i did want to mention as long as we're talking about the challenges that immigrants face is there was a historic poll done recently focusing on immigrant women and the fact

Mazie Hirono: that so many of them come to this country to truly create a new life of opportunity for their children. many of them were profession in their countries from which they came. and so they did not come to make money often. the kind of jobs they got were poor paying with not very many

Mazie Hirono: benefits. and this is so reminiscent when my mother came to this country. we came with nothing and she started off in a very poor paying job with absolutely no benefits. but what guided her was this immigrant spirit of wanting to create a new life for her children and that kept her

Mazie Hirono: going. and all she wanted was not only for herself to be able to take care of her families, but to have us have opportunities that she never had. and that story is repeated thousands and thousands and thousands of stories by the waves of immigrants from japan, korea, china the philippines